The Impact of AI Overviews on SEO

27 Jun 2024 · 1 min

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In this video, Eric Siu explains Google’s AI Overviews (now called Search Generative Experience, SGE) by likening it to the Perplexity search model, where answers are provided along with cited sources. He presents early data showing a modest increase in average click‑through rate (CTR) across all industries—from 3.64% (May 8‑11, pre‑AI Overviews) to 3.75% (May 15‑18) on a sample of roughly 65 million impressions. Siu emphasizes that the feature has just exited beta, so the data is preliminary. He notes criticism about citation accuracy but argues that the community should allow 6‑12 months for the technology to mature before drawing firm conclusions, warning SEOs against premature deep dives.

Chapters

The impact of AI Overviews on SEO. First, let's explain what AI Overviews is. It's basically SGE, so Search Generative Experience. They renamed it. David Sacks put this in a good way. It's basically Perplexity. So Perplexity is like when you search for something, you get the answer and you get like everything it cited, right? That's what it is. There's like a slight CTR increase. And when I say slight CTR increase for AI Overviews, for all industries, average CTR. Okay, this is May 8th to May 11th. This is pre-AI Overviews, 3.64% average CTR. And then 5/15 to 5/18, the CTR jumps up to 3.75%. And this is on the sample size of 65 million impressions for both. It's too early to say anything. This thing just came out of beta and it's going to continue to get better over time. And some people are making fun of the citations saying they're inaccurate and everything. I just think we need to give this at least another 6 to 12 months before calling it out. I think too many SEOs are trying to dive into this a little too early right now. Hold your horses a little bit.